


The world as we know it

by M_Lieckhart



Category: Justice League - All Media Types, Justice League vs. Teen Titans (2016), Teen Titans - All Media Types, Teen Titans: The Judas Contract (2017)
Genre: Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, DamiRae - Freeform, F/M, Oneshot, Post-Apokolips War, Post-Flashpoint (DCU), Soulmates, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-06
Updated: 2020-05-06
Packaged: 2021-03-03 06:01:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,560
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24040072
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/M_Lieckhart/pseuds/M_Lieckhart
Summary: wherever you are, come back and let's fall in love again.
Relationships: Raven/Damian Wayne
Kudos: 96





	The world as we know it

_Outside the window of the infirmary, all Raven could see were the broken buildings left in ruins from the rampage of the first wave of war, from above, in swollen, slate-colored clouds that blanket the sky mutter ominous portents amongst themselves over the remains of the once bright city. The view makes her feel hopeless. A constant reminder of the failure each of them had witness and brought together, she knew how their victory would only guarantee their freedom but not the lives taken from the bloodshed of battle, and all of them (if they ever survived) would be haunted by the ghosts they failed to save, whom they’d have to bury on shallow graves. Lost in thought her appearance takes in the worse, her father’s whispers grow louder each minute, and the white noise that fills her mind becomes static with chaos._

_“Are you alright?” A voice boomed from the doorway. A male’s voice to be exact. A voice she’ll recognized immediately after uttering just a word. She tears away her eyes from the window and looks towards him._

_He strides over to her with large steps, removing his sword from his waist and leans it over the bed and takes a seat next to the space besides her. He doesn’t say anything yet and chooses to forgo the silence waiting for her reply._

_“I’m fine.” She says with no conviction laced around her voice. “Though you’d probably think I’m so weak in a time of crisis.” She adds._

_“You are not weak, Raven. You’re one of the strongest people I know.” He states it like something so obvious._

_For a while they seem to refuse to say anything. She closes her eyes. He takes off his mask._

_“I wanted to ask how you and Clark became allies.” He inquires suddenly his piercing eyes scanning her hallow face with concern._

_She stays silent for a moment ashamed at how he would react towards her actions after he left their base, she thinks for what seemed to be a minute yet she felt her silence echoing loudly through the vastly empty room they occupied._

_“Is something wrong? If you don’t want to tell me the story I understand but you can always tell me what’s bothering you. You can trust me. We’ve known each other long enough to warrant some trust between us.” He says honestly, face stern yet his voice lingered an unusual warmth and openness she had not felt in a long time._

_“No, it’s-I---I,” she stutters, then she recollects her words and releases a sigh “When you left, things took a turn for the worse, I was alone. I lost hope, I lost faith in both humanity’s survival and in myself because everywhere I looked, I only saw the dried blood of our friends on the concrete of our severely destroyed tower and the destruction of Darkseid’s army had brought onto the city; and it was just too much.” She closes her eyes blocking out the screams that filled her dreams and the faces of her family’s last moments. She takes a deep breath, opens her eyes and regards his presences again. He continues to stare at her his fine features now filled with sadness and remorse._

_“I tried to end myself. It felt like the most logical thing to do, to end the pain and misery everyday brought.”_

_He doesn’t say anything and patiently waits for her to continue._

_“As I was about to do it Clark came out of nowhere and stopped me just in time. And when I looked at him, I realized that even when we both lost everything, he still continued to hope when that was the first thing we’d lost after one of our friends died. And I--- I chose to believe him. I just chose to believe in him.” She glances to the side her companion had occupied looking to see what reaction she had goad out of him._

_He simply looked solemn._

_“Someone gave me hope, Damian. And I want to hold on to that hope.” She turns to give her attention again towards the window and silently whispers._

_“For the both of us.”_

_A sudden jolt causes her to face him again and what she could registered on his face was pure shock and disbelief at what she had said, slightly embarrassed she chooses to change the direction of the conversation they were having._

_“Listen, I’m sorry I didn’t go with you when you asked me to join you with the League I---,”_

_“No, you have nothing to apologize for.” He cuts her off, leaving her no room to continue what she wanted to say. He seemed hesitant, selecting his words in such an articulate manner that it looked something was bothering his throat, but after a beat or two he says the escaped words from his mouth cautiously, “When I asked you to join me in leading the League, I wasn’t doing it simply because you were a great fighter and an asset, I asked you because, I—I had feelings for you and I wanted to keep you safe. And if you didn’t, you made the right deci---.”_

_And Damian’s words died on her lips against his._

_Time seemed to have forgotten them and the chaos outside turned into faded background noises when their lips met, soft yet firm, full of longing and years and years of guarded affection. Damian was taken aback at the closeness of their bodies yet it only took a second before it felt right, he deepens the kiss despite it being both their first, but there is a familiarity of being together much longer than when they were teammates, a feeling of being in each other’s lives too determined to be together for the Universe to be comfortable with -- and Damian could only hold her tight, his hands poured out the emotions he couldn’t put to words and the many moments they had together as a team gone by in a blur that he could no longer remember what happened during the in betweens._

_Raven breaks the kiss and rests her head on the crook of his neck, “My father wants to kill you. After everything I couldn’t risk losing someone who means too much to me.”_

_His eyes crinkles when he smiles and like staring at a mirror Raven smiles back._

In the black and white universe where heroes believe and do good, whose lives they willingly laid out on the lines to save millions, where they are nothing but a ghost of themselves with heavy hearts and stardust in their eyes. Raven openly dreams of peace, happiness, and love in the darkest parts of her mind; too far for her father to corrupt yet too close for her to easily dream in. Raven dreamed of a land far away. The kind of land that escaped from a child’s storybook and created out of sweet childish fantasies. In the distance below the cliff she was standing on, Raven saw a village covered by a blanket of snow with lights illuminating inside seen through the window showed that there was life going on inside the houses that surrounded one another, small houses that looked like they were carefully built by stacks of wood and bricks, each fitting perfectly with the other. Tall pine trees stretching across the valley, cows scattered across the empty patches of green fields some chewing on the grass while some slept peacefully familiar to the night, the wind turbines, slowly spinning their white blades, making the sky clearer than it already is.

Everything looked like a painting, she thinks, the kind of painting that exudes nostalgia and melancholy, the kind of painting that painters wish they could enter, it was the kind of land that reminded her of the things she could never have.

But in truth, Raven didn’t want a fairy tale ending with a rainbow at the end of a storm nor songs that celebrated a thoughtless victory, she simply dreamed a life that was normal and mundane, she envisions a future of a life much too similar to the one she destroyed as a child, one where she could move on peacefully and accept the mistakes they had made because that is all they are allowed to do; mourn and move on.

And in the darkest parts of her mind, she envisions all of this with Damian by her side.

After the last wave of attacks and diversion, after the loudest expulsion ringing through the sky, what was all left from the band of horribly demoralized and deformed heroes, she suddenly realized how they were _just_ humans cut from the same cloth, the war didn’t made them feel humbled nor rich with experience, it made them feel like cattle saved from being butchered from a slaughterhouse and now wondering aimlessly on an empty grassy field too oblivious of the fate it narrowly escaped; it simply opened their eyes to the reality they now had to face. And they kept looking at each other, searching for _something_ (or more likely needed) in each other’s eyes, for proof that of all the blood they had spilled, the comrades they had to sacrifice, everything they did for the sake of humanity to prevail, it had to mean something. Cold sunken eyes stare blankly at each other didn’t made it any easier, the dread each of them emits off their bodies almost made Raven fly away. She realized that they were no longer heroes but witnesses of a murder waiting to testify in court.

They had won. They were the soldiers who fought valiantly for their promise land. There they stood on the bodies that couldn’t taste the morning sun, their hearts blackened by the longest moonless night, and the death that latched onto their bodies could fill the emptiest rooms while their hands were drench with mixtures of sweat, blood and ashes.

Raven stared at Damian the way one would stare at an only lit lamppost of a starless night on a dark street; stuck in a trance in an ominous atmosphere.

Peculiar and disdainful, she was a woman that drew whispers behind her back.

“Father has informed me, that there will still be billions of lives at risk before everything returns back to normal.” He says honestly not hiding another grim news for another day full of it.

She doesn’t think they won. They were no victors. And she has to swallow the fact that Constantine was right, they needed to redo everything.

Damian sits next to her, removing his mask and puts an arm around her, a gesture losing its element of surprise for they were far too gone to be bashful towards such affections. They don’t say anything but they both know what needs to be done.

She takes a moment of silence before she says anything else, it felt strange and inappropriate to say such honey sickled words when they had already insulted the dead by being alive.

“Let’s just enjoy what we have.”

When they first met, she was drawn into the eyes of a boy who scowled like an angry old man yet sometimes whined like a child, it made her curious to find out what color his eyes held underneath the mask he proudly wears. Her curiosity was entertained when that _accident_ happened and she saw more than just the color of his eyes.

Damian had sharp emerald orbs for eyes, the kind she likes to get lost in. It reminded her of the forest she would wonder alone on warm afternoons, the purity of morning air, and the sweet childhood innocence that she would sense from young children playing in the park. But _Damian_ strayed far from those. He was always in between drowning in the bloodshed he led to waste and of sunlight seeping through over the horizons of dawn. He reminded her of everything she loves and fears. So intensely private and hidden it would take a lifetime to understand him (to _truly_ understand him), his methods were logical yet callous in the basis of clear morality, with many cursing him to be a brat who ran his tongue the way he ran his sword; swift but precise and deadly. Too young and too stubborn to die, he attaches himself to the ideals that would cement his legacy, till he reaps the Gods from their boons, till death will be his only enemy, and his name evokes fear and justice plastered on the lips of those who uphold it with respect.

And after all the years that they had known each other, she finds herself wondering how he sees himself in his reflection, His father’s reformed son? His grandfather’s greatest creation? Or the living prophecy of the man who was destined to carry the burden of being both the devil and a saint?

Even when he had proven himself in doing good, he still doubts the permanency of it all. But he gave up his life for his father, using the words instilled in him by his father’s family to act accordingly through every battle, he now carries hope as well as the mistakes and no longer shuns it. With his arm around her, eyes steadily gazing the sun seeping through across the sea, she believes he is now at peace with himself and to that she gives a small smile that tugs at the strings of her heart.

When Barry had started to sprint forwards towards the correct version of their world, they knew they were running out of time yet nothing else seemed meaningful but a kiss goodbye. She reaches out to touch his soft face and he turns to look at her taking the cue by leaning down to capture her lips one last time before they would wake up from a dream, they would brush off one morning day.

Staring into each other’s eyes told far too many stories of themselves, some worth reminiscing on days when memories are all they have and some stories that tailored itself as memories best left to be forgotten. She no longer fears death nor the isolation of nothingness, for she has both everything and nothing at the exact same moments when he holds her close to his chest. Her heart screams at the feeling of his arm around her waist, his whispers almost never reach her as the wind blows harder and the light grows brighter as they cling to each other too afraid the other would fade so quickly. She lifts her head and stares for the last time into his eyes once again, light tears prickling gently at the corner of her eyes as she says her final vow.

_"You’ll always have me." She promises.  
_

_"And I’ll always be here." He swears.  
_

In a universe where too many good people have become too delusional to their own loneliness in the deep void of the empty space they float freely in. In a universe of wasted times, where too many conversations are filtered with painful incarnations of memories and stories only encompassing of the what ifs, becoming a parasite left to manifest itself onto the bones of those who regret too much. Where the past is all one has, they cling to their former selves patiently waiting to intertwine again and live together anew.


End file.
